1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to mobile telecommunication and more particularly to a mobile terminal having a multi-medial user interface and means for modifying a behavior pattern thereof.
2. Brief Description of Related Developments
A mobile (cellular) telephone for a telecommunications system like GSM, UMTS, D-AMPS or CDMA2000 is a common example of a mobile terminal according to the above. In recent years, mobile terminals have become a necessity in the everyday life of many people. The functionality of modern mobile terminals has expanded broadly, e.g. with the introduction of digital cameras and digital calendars in mobile telephones, thereby making mobile terminals attractive to persons who previously had no particular reason for using a mobile terminal. With the increased number of people using mobile terminals, personalization has become an important issue. Users may want to personalize their mobile terminals for at least two different reasons.
Firstly, having a heavy personalized mobile terminal in public areas such as locker rooms, conference halls, restaurants, etc, reduces the risk of confusing the user's terminal with someone else's terminal of the same brand and the same model. In order for a user to reduce the risk of mixing up his mobile terminal with other users' mobile terminals, the user must personalize the mobile terminal in some way.
A second reason behind personalization is the well-known human need for expressing herself—i.e., the same need that by way of example is also apparent from numerous car and motorcycle customizations, personalized multimedial layout of personal computers, wearing designer clothes, tattoos, piercings, extravagant hair cuts, etc.
One way of personalizing a mobile terminal is to change its casing. Today, it is possible to buy a specific model of a mobile telecommunications terminal and subsequently exchange the original casing for another casing of a different color or with a different surface pattern. Hence, to some extent, the mobile terminal will be personalized by the exchanged casing. However, the number of different exchange casings available for a specific model of a mobile terminal is often quite limited.
Another approach to personalize a mobile terminal is to select one theme among a plurality of predefined themes in the mobile terminal. In many mobile terminals it is possible to simultaneously change a background image displayed on the terminal's display screen and the sounds used for indicating incoming telephone calls and messages (such as SMS, EMS, MMS etc) by selecting a particular theme. For example, selecting a “Christmas” theme may cause the display background to show a snowy Christmas landscape with Santa Claus and his reindeers, set the ringtone for incoming calls to “Jingle Bells” and set the alert signal for an SMS arrival to “Frosty the Snowman”. In addition to the predefined themes stored in the mobile terminal, the user may also download further themes from a server on the Internet. WO 2004/057467 discloses a mobile terminal upgrading system in which content packages including themes may be downloaded in this way.
A similar concept for personalization is the use of profiles. A profile is a set of settings that define the behavior of various functionality of the mobile terminal in a certain context. Thus, many mobile terminals have predefined and editable profiles for, e.g., handsfree mode, silent mode, connected to PC, office, meeting and default (normal). The settings of each profile typically specify the behavior of the terminal's illumination (light), ring tone, keypad sound, warning tones, sound volume, vibration, call diversion, network availability, etc.
EP-0 865 188 discloses a mobile terminal with different profiles (which are referred to as “phone setting modes”). The user may define new profiles and edit existing ones. In EP-0 865 188, the personalization and the user convenience are extended by introducing automatic selection of which profile that is to be currently active in response to a current change in context. To this end, the mobile terminal in EP-0 865 188 has a plurality of detectors 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 each capable of supplying a control parameter representing the current context. A CPU and a controller in the mobile terminal receive the control parameters thus detected and searches a predefined table that matches control parameter values and profiles. In case of a match, the matching profile is automatically set as the active one.
While the approach in EP-0 865 188 has its benefits, there is on the other hand a risk of inconvenience, since the user cannot interact in the continuous process for selection of active profile; this is entirely handled by the automatic control process described above. Thus, the user may sometimes experience that his terminal switches profiles out of his control, e.g. too often or at unexpected occasions. There is a possibility for the user to select between automatic-mode profile selection and manual-mode profile selection (see mode selection box 27 in FIG. 2), but if manual mode is selected, the user is left with purely manual operation and all the benefits of the automatic control process are lost.
It is therefore believed to be desirable to provide a new manner of personalization that combines the advantages of manual and automatic control to modify a current behavior pattern of a multi-medial user interface for a mobile terminal.